


Pretending Typically

by englishmen



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/F, F/M, M/M, Multi, Rating May Change
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-08-25
Updated: 2013-08-25
Packaged: 2017-12-24 15:20:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,242
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/941488
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/englishmen/pseuds/englishmen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Modern AU in which Arthur is an ass, Merlin is a poet, Leon is a nerd and Gwen likes sweet things.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Pretending Typically

The first time they meet is in the kitchen.

 

It's before noon on a Saturday and Arthur isn't sure what's possessed him to even be awake, let alone wandering through the house in search of the caffeine that will hopefully take him from bleary-eyed creature of the depths to something resembling a functional human being. He hasn't showered yet and looks a haggard mess in t-shirt and boxers - the exact opposite of the state he usually likes to be in when unexpectedly coming across total strangers.

 

"Oh, morning," the boy with the dark hair greets him cheerfully. He's looking like a bizarre daytime version of a bartender - _you know barmen don't cease to exist when the sun's up, right?_  says Gwaine's voice in Arthur's head, irritating as ever - standing at the breakfast bar, spooning sugar into one of the two mugs in front of him. On the counter behind, the kettle is on, its low rumbling hiss growing louder as the water boils. Arthur is not as pleased with this vision as he should be. It's too early for smiling, and he's currently paying the price for the far too much drinking he'd done the previous night. Thinking about it, it isn't entirely clear how he got to bed. But then it often isn't. "Tea?" the boy offers genially, persisting in his failure to accurately guess that the current appropriate speaking volume is approximately Mute.

 

"Coffee," Arthur grunts, sitting down.

 

"Sugar?"

 

"Yes."

 

Silence is Arthur's most revered goddess this early in the morning. She sweeps beautifully across the kitchen after that small exchange, blessedly enveloping the small space with her grace, gently soothing the throb in Arthur's head - until suddenly she is viciously banished once more as the boy turns to fetch another mug from the cupboard and the coffee from the side ( _no hesitation - he has been here before, then_ ) and makes it painfully clear that in the absence of conversation he's just going to hum instead. The sound itself is annoying, but just the fact that it is so completely unnecessary gets Arthur's hackles up almost immediately. He resolves to wait it out until he can go back to his room and fire up FIFA 13 until such time as he feels human enough to face the world. The cheerful humming continues and that plan lasts all of six seconds.

 

"Who are you?" he demands unkindly.

 

"Me? I'm Merlin," the boy answers over his shoulder, still smiling in what Arthur decides is a particularly infuriating way. Like he doesn't particularly have anything to smile about, but he will anyway, because he's one of those people. "I'm a, uh, friend of Leon's, he asked me to come over and--"

 

" _Merlin?_ " Arthur deliberately makes the name sound like a venereal disease.

 

"... Yes." The continuing onslaught of unfriendliness is apparently beginning to get to the stranger, whose smile is fading somewhat into a displeased little frown - though that could just as well be concentration, because by now he's pouring water into the three mugs lined up in front of him. Arthur's is the black one, next to two from the same set with cartoon cats on them. He thinks that was probably a deliberate slight, because Merlin can't possibly know that that really is his cup.

 

"That's the most ridiculous name I've ever heard."

 

"... said _Arthur Pendragon_." Merlin gives a snort of laughter, and Arthur is momentarily too taken aback to respond, disarmed by the swift retort. "D'you want milk in yours, or do you take your coffee hot and bitter too?"

 

The silence is less sweet and forgiving in her second coming. The air is full of a dark unwelcoming cloud, a grumpy haze of pain, an undeniable smiling sun cheerfully disregarding both and getting in the blonde man's eyes - completely, at this point, on purpose. Merlin isn't even trying to hide his amusement at the fact that Arthur clearly can't think of a decent comeback.

 

"Piss off," he grumbles instead of punching the prick. He doesn't think he has the energy right now, and Leon has reacted badly to Arthur punching his friends before. Honestly, he thinks Leon should just stop hanging around with such insufferable idiots, but apparently his friend doesn't share the sentiment. With Percy's vote added, that has annoyingly meant that _Arthur is not allowed to punch people_ has been inducted to their little list of House Rules (which used to be written on the whiteboard in the hallway but isn't anymore because during some house party or other it was replaced by persons unknown with a really good drawing of, for some reason, a rabbit).

 

"Suit yourself."

 

It's not until hours later, when half a cup of cold coffee is still sitting on Arthur's nightstand because he hates it black but he's too proud to just put milk in it himself, that he fully realizes that 'bitter' isn't the only thing Merlin called him.

 

Irritatingly, it doesn't help.

  
  
  


\----

  
  
  


"You took your time," Leon says as he accepts his cup of tea and puts it immediately down on the desk. He doesn't sound like he minds, though, because he doesn't.

 

"Met Arthur in the kitchen," Merlin explains, putting his own cup down on the floor so that he can curl up in the bean bag that seems to take up at least half of Leon's bedroom. It's a pity it was a gift from an ex-girlfriend, because if he'd known where to get them, Merlin might already have had four of these. It is exceptionally comfortable for all that Leon doesn't often use it, and the smaller male has made it clear that he has officially claimed it as his official seat for when he comes here. Apparently that's of enough import to require both instances of the word 'official'.

 

Leon laughs and sits back on his bed, facing his friend. He's nowhere near the titanium-liver level of the others and especially makes a point of not trying to keep up with Gwaine, but he was there last night too, pint in hand. That's his secret: two or three pints is sociable enough for him, and he drinks them slowly, apparently impervious to the hassling of his friends who are frequently on his case to drink up so they can move on to the next pub. It's why he's so unaffected this morning; he's been up and dressed for hours, curly hair a mess only because it always is. He's been complaining about how long it's getting lately, but when he gets it cut it's only ever an inch or so, so that he's fretting about it anew within a few months. He's not much for shaving, either, and it's generally agreed that were he to get rid of the lot he would probably look something like Darth Vader or one of those creepy bald cats. It says a lot about his friends, he thinks, that there is actually a consensus on that.

 

"I bet that was a laugh." The widening of Merlin's eyes seems to plead for strength from above, which is often needed when dealing with Arthur - especially as hungover as Leon guesses he must be today. It says enough. "Did he remember you?"

 

"Nope."  Merlin appears to be doing his best impression of a dormouse, though he ends up looking more like a greyhound. Gangly limbs everywhere as he curls up into a ball, legs hanging off the edge of the beanbag pushed taut by the full weight of his body where he lays in the middle of it, cradling his cup of tea and blowing the steam off the top. As he stands at a height of Too Damn Tall (though not so much next to Percy, who measures up at somewhere around Now You're Just Showing Off), Leon wishes he had that talent for getting comfortable anywhere he chose.

 

"S'pose you did come late - he was nearly passed out before you even got there." Arthur is slightly less wise about his decisions where alcohol is involved - it is never a good idea to play Save The Queen or any other drinking game, but somebody always ends up starting it, and while Leon is happy to laugh and tell them all to get lost because he'll drink his pint how he wants to no matter what the rules say, Arthur is... well. Less wise. Too proud to let the rules beat him, though that's what they keep doing. It's just lucky that this time there hadn't been any bouncers nearby to throw up on or pick a pointless fight with.

 

"I did try. I couldn't get out of working the late finish, and since I was on with Freya it was past eleven before they let me go." Merlin has talked about Freya before, though Leon hasn't met her. He knows second-hand that she's a nice girl, but lives too far away and always has to leave so early that Merlin is left cleaning up alone at the end of the day. Leon nods his understanding, bringing one knee up closer to his chest so that he can pick idly at the frayed edges of a hole in the knee of his jeans.

 

"Well," he raises his eyebrows, amused by this collection of circumstances. This hadn't been how he'd wanted Merlin to meet Arthur. He'd thought perhaps they would get along, that by some cosmic mercy they might even hit it off as well as their separate personalities suggested they could - but if meeting Arthur blind drunk was bad (and how could it be anything but), meeting him again fully hung over can only be worse. Even more than a decade of friendship hasn't made hungover Arthur easier for Leon to handle, and he can only imagine how hard it must be for anyone else. There's a reason why _People are not allowed to punch Arthur_ was so stolidly vetoed from the House Rules. "Thoughts?"

 

Merlin hums, slurping his still-too-hot tea noisily and pulling a face so overacted that Leon is immediately put in mind of old episodes of Star Trek. The huge show he's making of thinking about it is pushed into cartoonish territory by the added tilt of his head and the finger that taps his chin - there may as well be an actual thought bubble forming in the empty air above him.

 

"Considering the fact that I just made him a coffee and he told me to piss off..." Leon shakes his head and laughs under his breath, because he's learned that sometimes that's all you can do. "... I'd say a solid eight and a half. Maybe even a nine - does he walk around in his pants all the time? Because I could get used to that..."

 

As it turns out, being curled up in a beanbag makes it exceptionally difficult to dodge an expertly thrown sock, and when it catches him in the face Merlin squawks and flails so crazily that Leon is genuinely impressed all of his tea stays in his cup.

  
  
  


\----

  
  
  


The real first time they met was at the Rising Sun.

 

The place is universally agreed to be a shithole, but they don't stop letting in until three and their spirit and mixer deal is the cheapest in town, so Friday night sees it regularly packed to the rafters with university students and their ilk. This particular night had been a meeting of the usual suspects: Gwaine's incredible tolerance and cheerful determination to constantly smash right through it; Leon's stately drinking habits and genial humor; Arthur's quick wit and eagerness to beat people at things; Percy's good-guy nature and willingness to take more than his fair share of turns as the designated driver (due in part to a pre-agreed steep cleanup fee stringently enforced on anybody who throws up in his car); Elyan's story about the ghost in his flat that he tells a different way every night... And later, for the first time, Merlin. A friend of Leon's from school - not college but secondary. A rare success story in deciding to catch up again years later, now that Leon is wrestling with his degree in engineering and Merlin is moving in nearby because not going to university doesn't mean he wants to stay at home all his life.

 

By the time Merlin arrived, somebody had already invoked the International Drinking Rules - which was for once a good thing, because having no idea what those were provided the perfect ice breaker once Leon introduced him to Arthur, who by this point was having trouble focusing and often felt the inexplicable drunken need to repeat whatever it was he'd just said. He did a lot of wobbly staring and a lot of blinking and a lot of telling Merlin to shut up and stop laughing, even though he was laughing too, in the least derisive way he had all night. Arthur found himself unable to stop tacking Merlin's name on the end of every sentence - which, being against one of the Rules, only made things worse for him. Before Percy had half-led, half-dragged him away to the car, the last thing the blonde man had done was lean suddenly on Merlin's shoulder and out of nowhere grin up at him like a puppy; yellow tousle and bright blue eyes and that one funny tooth, looking up into the soft white darkness of his newly proclaimed Snow White.

 

It was probably the best introduction he could possibly have forgotten.

 


End file.
